IslandGuru Who payed the critics

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

moonspinner55 "Cinderella Liberty" was obviously written and directed by men (in this case, the screenplay by Darryl Ponicsan, from his novel, and the direction by Mark Rydell). It features the kind of movie-hooker culled straight from the 1950s, one with a big heart, a fun-loving laugh and a dedication to her sailors--she just can't wait to get back to business. James Caan, probably the most sensitive movie tough-guy of this era, latches onto a Seattle whore (Marsha Mason) and her illegitimate, half-black pre-teen son; the three make a happy pair until Mason prematurely gives birth to the baby she's carrying. Rydell is a filmmaker who sees romance in welfare-marked squalor, and his sentiment is braced with a tough shell, yet nothing in the film makes sense. After a one-nighter with Mason, Caan meets up with her smart-aleck son by chance and instantly identifies him as her kid (there isn't a moment of recognition, just a decent man-to-man chat and the story moves on). Once Mason and Caan decide to get married, there's lots of talk regarding their union yet we never see it. The script is a connect-the-dots job, with unconvincing characters to match. Mason, despite an Oscar nod, isn't quite believable playing low-class, and every time she's uses the word "ain't" it rings false (her somewhat-chaste nudity is uncomfortable for her too, you can sense she cannot wait to cover up). Caan, frequently talking with a hick twang in his voice, plays decent and moral as if it were a dark cloud over him; he's an optimist but a hopeless one, and when he gets his ire up and fights back he is still shown getting nowhere. The picture is heavy on the bluesy Seattle night-life, but the sordid atmospherics never quite come through (this is pretty coy for an R-rated feature). Rydell and Ponicsan believe in the cliché so badly they have to conjure up a happy ending out of thin air. As for Mason, she has a quiet, reflective moment where she tells how sick she is of the mess her life has become--though in the very next scene, she's making herself up for a night on the town. You just can't keep a gold-plated lady-of-the-evening down, not even in Seattle. ** from ****

teamcruz The movie was great, my interpretation was boiled down to when opposites "attempt" to attract, the moral and the immoral people. There are some very "unexpected" turnouts in the movie, which makes it a classic hit compared to the obvious turnouts of todays movies. Todays "drama" movies contain obvious turnouts, in example a married man leaves his innocent always faithful wife for a younger single woman, only to realize the younger woman turns out to be everything his wife is not, which makes him do the right thing and go back to his wife. This is why the movie is a must see for persons seeking unique drama stories.

DBlake-2 I have never forgotten this film for a second after seeing it on VHS years ago. 2 of my favorite actors of the 70s, Mason and Caan....Marsha needs to be better represented on DVD; why isn't this film and "Only When I Laugh" on DVD yet? Who do we complain to? There were so many surprising elements to this film...i was shocked to see the nudity in this film, and also the mixed race of her son, if my memory serves me correctly, and played by an interesting child actor. The movie was just more than i was expecting it to be, a very pleasant surprise. I just read that she beat out Babs for this part, and i really can't see her playing this part the way Marsah did, tho i do love her as well.

Deran_Ludd You can't necessarily tell by the cinematography, but this fantastic movie is the best film ever shot in Seattle - the pre-Microsoft, real Seattle. The acting is understated to the point where the camera and the actors almost playing a game of who holds the shot the longest. It is not a story about losers at all - that is Sleepless in Seattle - Cinderella Liberty is a beautiful love story in the real world. Cinderella Liberty is a story about the possibilities that can exist between humans in even the most low-life of worlds. I love it because it is the Seattle I knew and offers its characters many of the choices I had offered to me at a certain point in my own life. And that's what heart-gripping cinema is all about, to me.